An Interview with David Okenwa
As part of our efforts to hear from young people working on fighting climate change around the world we were delighted to be able to interview David Okenwa, a climate activist and recent mechanical engineering graduate from Nigeria who also works for MOCK COP.
Many thanks for David for taking the time to talk to us about his story, his work in the renewables industry in Nigeria, Nigeria’s own energy story, how we can embed climate education into engineering curriculums, as well as some exciting MOCK COP projects they have coming up.
Ed Wilson. David, thank you for taking the time to talk to us, please introduce yourself.
David Okenwa. I am David Okenwa, and I’m based in Nigeria, I also have a background in Mechanical Engineering, I just graduated from the department of mechanical engineering at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, last year.
I’m currently working with Manamuz Electric as a Sustainable energy project manager, where I facilitate the deployment of solar powered cold rooms to last-mile farms in Nigeria. It is estimated that over 50% of food is lost in the Sub-Saharan region, and I’m helping to reduce that in Nigeria by deploying cold rooms powered by the sun, in areas where they don’t have good access to electricity. We also deploy solar PVs and mini-grids to areas that want to have them instead of depending solely on the grid, because the grid is still unreliable.
I’m also very interested in climate advocacy, I became more aware of it in 2019, when one of my seniors, who was a climate activist (and is still a climate activist) talked to me about it. I learnt more in 2020 and became fully involved in 2021, when I organized a campaign to increase the consciousness of the environment and sustainability among the students.
And in 2021 I joined Mock COP as a volunteer, in Phase 2 of Mock COP. They had already done Phase 1 where the Mock COP26 was held in 2020 when COP26 was postponed. I joined as a volunteer and led the newsletter team, that kept the email list at Mock COP informed. That put me in the position where I was aware of what was happening, in Phase 4 I joined the staff team, and we are coordinating the Mock COP activities of Phase 4 now.
I am really happy to be talking to you today. They told me about the great work and support that COP26andbeyond has given to Mock COP including William Wilson in joining and shaping the initial treaty in 2020 and he did a really great job.
I think that MOCK COP is a fantastic idea, we really tried to jump on and help where we can in helping with the treaty and now continuing. What are the goals for MOCK COP this year? Are you hosting another summit or are you hosting different education summits and events?
DO. Yes, we are. In Phase 2 that was when COP26 was actually held, we hosted an Education Ministers Summit at COP26 together with the UK education ministry, the Italian government and UNESCO, but in COP27 it did not happen. So, this year we are planning to bring back the Education Ministers Summit, because we need to include climate education more in the curriculum of various countries because youth need to be trained and aware, as awareness breeds action.
This year we are going to host both the Mock Education Ministers Summit with youth delegates, in preparation for a full education ministers summit at COP28 that will include countries education ministers. The mock summit will be held on 12th and 13th August 2023 and it’s going to be like the initial Mock COP26, bringing delegates from as many countries as possible and training them, educating them, and guiding them to make high level statements on big topics like the state of climate education in their countries, and make asks for their political leaders to implement or work on in their countries. We are planning that.
This year will also have grassroots projects, like Teach the Teacher, Teach the Parent, and Teach the Politician. We did Teach the Teacher and Teach the Parent in 2022 and in this phase we are adding Teach the Politician. The idea is climate education: influencing the COP and the governments of the countries, saying we need more climate education in school curriculums.
Was there climate change or awareness in your curriculum in high school or when you studied engineering?
No, no, no. It wasn’t really included, just the individual lecturers that are aware of it and looked at the switch from the traditional sources of energy to new sources of energy, but officially in the curriculum, no.
I was the same, it wasn’t included on its own, there were some specific courses that had energy transition themes and you could study it as a specialty but it wasn’t all the way through as a thread in the way you guys are pushing for, so it sounds like a really good initiative. What led you personally to go down the engineering route, and how do you see engineers helping tackle climate change in the future (or now!)?
When I was young, I did not know what I would pursue, what I wanted to become, I was confused. Should I study engineering or should I study medicine. But I chose to study engineering and mechanical engineering in particular, I was attracted by machinery, moving equipment, and the things that engineers do, but I didn’t really know the path I would take. So now being in mechanical engineering and seeing that one path for mechanical engineers is the energy path, and energy is like the greatest contributor to climate change. Over 73% of greenhouse gas emissions are from the production and use of energy, so we really need to decarbonize energy and that is what I am focusing my career on.
Engineers have a large role to play in fighting climate change because we need to decarbonize most of our equipment, taking them to electrical because electricity will be the easiest to decarbonize, so electric vehicles, electric trucks, and then make that electricity come from renewable or sustainable sources: solar, wind, hydro, even nuclear—nuclear is clean but not really classified as renewable—that can be used instead of the traditional sources of electricity that we have.
Fantastic, and if you were looking at your curriculum you had when you were studying engineering and thinking about future engineers how would you involve more climate change education in the curriculum? Have you got any ideas of how you would suggest changes?
Yeah, in my first year, we did Engineering 101: Introduction to Engineering, as a general introduction to engineering that every engineering student had to do. I think that is the place to introduce sustainability to the future engineers. Inculcating it in them that in everything they do they should practice sustainability. They should not come up with solutions or do things that are not sustainable to the planet, because that is the most important challenge we have right now and we need to put our heads together to solve.
If I were to work on the curriculum, one of the modules should be “Engineers and Sustainability” and inculcating that value so that whatever we are doing as engineers should put sustainability first, and ensure we are not adding to the problem but taking away from it.
Bringing it from a specialty that people can choose further down the line into the first introduction to the subject and putting it right at the heart of what engineers need to think about? So if you engineer something you have to make sure its safe, its economical, it works, but then you should also consider that you use things in a sustainable way? That’s a great idea.
Can you tell us a little bit about the state of climate change action in Nigeria? Does Nigeria have a goal to decarbonize or is it still very reliant on natural gas? It sounds like you are working on renewables in the agricultural sector. If you could give us a bit of an overview that would be great.
Nigeria contributes very little, in fact the entirety of Africa contributes very little to climate change. But then it is very critical because we are developing, and we need to go down the path of sustainable development, so we don’t develop unsustainably and generate so much CO2. That would make us go past our 1.5 degrees target. In Nigeria most of our power still comes from natural gas, around 82%, 18% from hydro (we have different dams), I don’t think we have wind yet, but solar is coming in and because the grid is unreliable, many place are installing solar in their houses with batteries for storage. Companies are adopting it. Mini grids are being installed in rural areas that have not been connected to the grid before.
And we have youths coming up that are passionate and interested in advocating for climate justice in Nigeria and beyond. Youths are coming up, becoming advocates and making our leaders more aware of climate change and what we should do to ensure that Nigeria can develop sustainably. One of Nigeria’s major sources of revenue is crude oil, but the government is recognizing climate change and they are working on moving away from crude oil to natural gas as a transition source of energy and then fully to renewables.
EW. Amazing thank you, and its one of the things we’ve noticed about all the people working at MOCK COP and young climate activists in general is the geographic spread is just incredible its not like its being pushed from one country or western countries or anything like that, its young people all around the world are pushing their own governments where they live and I think that’s absolutely fantastic to see.
As a last question, thinking about young people advocating for climate change, what do you think is their role going forwards? There was a very prominent youth movement with Fridays for Future that pushed it to the top of the agenda, and youths were included in COP26 and were included a bit more in the official summits, but what do you see as the role of young people now in pushing for climate advocacy?
DO. Young people need to be at the front more, some things have been done in the recent past but young people need to be involved more so that its not just young people advocating and pushing leaders to act sustainably but also, they are there at the table making the decisions. Not just striking, advocating, calling for change in policies and calling for action, but actually having the power to decide on what should be done and what can be done.
I think we are making some progress, COPs now have youth champions, and I saw recent advert for 100 International Youth Climate Delegates to be embedded within the international climate policy negotiation process for COP28. I think YOUNGO is coordinating the recruitment, and this is a positive action, but we need more going forward so that youth are making the shots not just advocating for the shots.
Absolutely I couldn’t agree more. Is there anything else you’d like to share on activities you are working on that you wanted to get across?
Recruitment forms for delegates for the Mock Education Ministers Summit (Mock EMS) are open (see button to the right) and we are looking to have 2-4 delegates from as many countries as possible for the Mock EMS.
Thank you very much for your time.
It’s been great to speak to you, continue the great work you are doing at COP26andbeyond.
Likewise, keep at it you’re doing great work!